Pages

Thursday, 18 August 2016

I’m
not adding anything new to the world of Simpsonscriticism – from people far more informed than I am – when I say that where
season 9 was the turning point, season 10 is where it’s clear this show isn’t
what it used to be. There’s a tendency to claim that while the glory days are
now behind The Simpsons, weak Simpsons is still better than most TV.
But compared to most other animated sitcoms, whether Futurama or King of the Hill or
South Park or even Beavis and Butthead, from here on in The Simpsons is sorely lacking. It’s
right on the brink of not-worth-watching at this point, and I found some
episodes decidedly tedious.

And
yes, the main problem here is Homer. He’s now absolutely the show’s main
character, but he’s also a self-centred, borderline psychopathic, narcissistic
weirdo. He was once so relatable, and now he’s a proud criminal and
unbelievable moron who I find it hard to believe anyone would like if they started
watching the show from this point. No longer Fred Flintstone, he’s become more
Felix the Cat, and that’s hard to stomach.

There
are some decent episodes here, especially toward the beginning of the season,
like ‘The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace’, where Homer actually shows some
conscience after coming up with a scheme to destroy a piece of American
heritage. Bart shows a bit of depth in ‘Bart the Mother’ and the moment where a
whole awards ceremony is faked for Lisa is probably the funniest moment of the season,
alongside Homer surveying his newly-built barbeque. Homer’s stint as a
bodyguard also has its moments.

This
is also one of the few example of an episode where there are two plotlines
where both are good (Homer gets a pet lobster concurrently with Lisa’s cheating
dilemma, and both are amusing stories). Too often, there is a strong strand and
a weak one, and sadly it usually falls to Marge and Lisa to pad episodes with
some dull time-wasting, like trying to find a missing jigsaw piece or getting a
new doorbell.

Some
ideas are good and badly-executed, like the kids setting up a pirate radio
show, ending with a terrible musical number, or Homer and Ned’s trip to Vegas
which jettisons all its interesting moral questions very quickly. Other ideas
are just terrible, like Homer becoming
friends with a Hollywood couple in a bizarre self-congratulatory celebrity episode.
More could have been done with Homer looking into his roots than him being a
horrible person to hippies, and the Treehouse of Horror episodes are wearing thin,
especially as they are no longer the containment episodes for surrealist
sequences. Trips abroad are terrible, the Scotland jaunt being weirdly tacked-on
and the journey to Japan being embarrassingly less amusing and insightful than
one phone call to Japanese people about Mr. Sparkle. The Steven Hawking cameo
also isn’t nearly as funny as I remember it being.

This is a disappointing series where the saving graces are few and far
between, and I don’t predict any improvement from here. It’s also a little sad
to note this is the end of Phil Hartman’s characters Troy McClure and Lionel
Hutz after his murder. He would have made a great Zapp Brannigan.

Thursday, 11 August 2016

Finding Dory was preceded by the short film Piper, which was a characteristically cute little story of a little
sandpiper who at first is traumatised by water, but then learns to innovate by
following some little hermit crabs and becomes the best little hunter around.
It’s a very Pixar story, extremely cute and full of heart (though of course
requires us to be highly selective with what life forms we anthropomorphise),
with plenty going for it technically – not just the water effects, but the
clever way the simulated depth of field imitated cameras focusing on very small
things. For me, though, the strangest surprise was seeing King Crimson stalwart
(and recent NyX collaborator) Adrian Belew provided the music.

The
movie itself was a triumph. When the sequel to Finding Nemo was announced, people were sceptical. Finding Nemo
again? But the shift of the story from Marlin to Dory was a very clever one.
Dory as a character centred on the quirk of her memory loss. That made her a
character who was extremely amusing but shallow – what would she forget next?
Her friends? Her companions? Where did she come from? What was she doing before
she met Marlin?

So
here we get a quest for self-discovery from a fish with short-term memory loss.
And, indeed, long-term memory loss. Dory doesn’t remember her parents, until
small things begin to remind her of where she grew up. Not in the ocean, but in
captivity.

Like
the first film, Finding Dory is
primarily a journey – or two journeys, since Marlin and Dory are separated
through much of the story. On this journey, numerous characters are introduced
very quickly – burly, protective but fun-loving sea-lions; insecure but
loveable whales; a self-centred but good-hearted octopus; a typical small role
for John Ratzenburger as a little crab quietly trimming the lawn. Sigourney
Weaver steals the show without actually having a character, and there’s a very
satisfying mini-cameo right at the end to tie up some loose threads from the
first film.

Of
course, the film relies heavily on coincidence, highly unlikely feats of action
and an octopus able to thrive seemingly indefinitely out of water. But those
don’t impede a simple, direct and at times very moving plot. There’s a little
plot device involving shells that is particularly sweet. Having this kind of
ensemble cast works well in an animation, when characters can be so distinct
without having to play a very large role in the story, and the humour is always
gentle, affectionate and celebrates pushing yourself a little further before
and thinking outside the box.

Visually,
this is also triumphant, a notable improvement from the first film, and the
huge central tank of the aquarium is particularly beautiful – though of course
animating something designed to be beautiful is going to result in beauty, so
that helps the visual impact of the film. In some ways the ending is a little
messy and one wonders if there wasn’t some huge impact on how humans view
marine life, but it was also a satisfying large-scale moment in a relatively
small-scale film.

Sequels
are often seen as a lazy cash-in, and very often detract from the original. But
this kind of sequel, made 13 years later from a place of real affection for the
original, filling a gap that persists from the original storyline, is exactly
how a sequel should be done. And it didn’t hurt that baby Dory was just so damn
cute!

Wednesday, 3 August 2016

Finally
watching the Wakfu OVAs put me very
much in the mood for more Wakfu. There’s
no more Wakfu to watch until Season 3
begins next month, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t more from the universe I
could see. I still had this to watch, the first in the Dofus films, released theatrically in France earlier this year.

France
has been producing some impressive animated movies in recent years, Le Jour des corneilles being a
particular favourite, and it seems fitting that Ankama got something up on the
big screen. And to mark the occasion, they’ve upped their game, creating
something beautifully fluid and ambitious, yet again pushing the boundaries of
Flash further than anyone else. I couldn’t say this movie quite stood alone,
requiring a fair bit of knowledge of Joris’ background, but parents
accompanying their kids or random cinemagoers probably would have enjoyed this
as a standalone piece.

The
story picks up three years after the end of AuxTrésors de Kerubim. Little Joris is still little, but a slightly more
rebellious 10-year-old, rather than the adoring 7-year-old of the series. He
still adores his papycha Kerubim, but rebels against him a little, too,
especially when it comes to seeing the Boufbowl games.

However,
life around Kerubim is never simple, and when the formidable Huppermage named
Julith comes for the dofus Kerubim is protecting, there’s little our heroes can
do to oppose her. Joris and little Lilotte, now much closer to Joris than she
was in the season, have to join forces with a young rival Huppermage named
Bakara and a swaggering Boufbowl player named Khan Karkass to secure an
opposing Dofus and use it against Julith before she can put her wicked and very
Fullmetal Alchemist-esque plan into
action. And Joris might just discover a thing or two about his real parents
along the way.

Where
Julith really succeeds is in not
taking itself too seriously. The characters have the typical Ankama
eccentricity to their designs, with Julith having a very distinctive nose, Khan
Karkass being the silliest Iop design yet and Bakara looking somewhat like she
belongs in The Dark Crystal. There’s
some wonderful bathos to some of the rather serious moments, and the fact that
underpants are instrumental to the antagonist’s plan just undercuts everything nicely.
Like many French animations, it also covers territory that American family fare
tends to shy away from – getting drunk, flamboyant homosexuality and explicit
heterosexual desire, too.

It’s also both silly and rather joyful that defeating
the antagonist essentially turns into a game of Boufbowl at the end.

But
the heart of the piece is of course Joris and he retains his extremely likeable
personality from the series. He’s still a very long way from the Master Joris
we saw in Wakfu, but he’s also
growing and changing. And yes, as expected, we had an explanation for why
Kerubim calls him ‘Father’ in the OVAs – if not yet a similar one for Atcham.

I’m
excited for more Wakfu, but I have to
say far more than the peaceful, fun little series that was Aux Trésors de Kerubim, this movie made me excited for more Dofus. I’m very keen to see where things
will go with Livre 2.

Welcome to Adziu's small corner

Welcome to my little blog, here in this small corner.
Over the years I have seen a few hundred animated series and movies, and the purpose of this blog is to house my impressions. This is not intended to be a daily blog with impressions of each episode: I write my thoughts only after viewing something complete. Several have been imported from previous blogs dating back to 2005 - as well as drawing from journals from as early as 1999!
Now, please do sit, enjoy the fire, have a mug of something warm and put in a comment or two.